9/11
Along with millions of other people, I want to post my thoughts on 9/11.
I had no personal connection to 9/11; knew nobody involved; felt, to be honest, very little beyond a sense of staggered amazement. And the awful, guilty cliche: it's like a film.
But 9/11 changed the world and changed our lives.
There will be those blogging today who insist that America deserved it. There will also be those (Sen Kerry) who insist that the world has become less safe since.
Effective cries, because partly true. In the grand scheme of things, America (and certainly American weaponry) has killed more people than any other country. And an American life lost on 9/11 is no more - or less - valuable than an Iraqi, Israeli or Palestinian life. And when the Americans deal death from the air to anybody, only the saintly, the heroic and the mad could welcome it as a liberation.
And yet, God willing, that may be what it becomes.
Possibly there are more terrorists, more hatred of America now. But this is to assume that this would not have otherwise been the case, which seems to play tricks with the known facts. It seems more to me that America is like Sam Neill in Jurassic Park: attract the dinosaur now, for fear of the consequences if you run and hide.
And America cannot run and hide. Like it or not, it is the world's superpower; the only nation remotely capable of even attempting to implement blithe UN resolutions. As a historian, I firmly believe that posterity will be kinder to President Bush and Prime Minister Blair than their contemporaries think. Yes, that's a horrible question of death and mayhem reduced to a retrospective geopolitical calculation. But after 9/11, it became clearer that the choices were very bad and appalling. No time for counter-factuals now, merely reflection and - hopefully - humility, but the case can and will be made that the President saw the bigger picture and saw it right.
To borrow another film, America is now Gary Cooper in High Noon. On the frontier, we have to hope that the greater violence is on the right side.
But it does look like a question of sides. That is the lesson of 9/11.
I do not know what fate awaits me
I only know I must be brave
And I must face a man who hates me
Or lie a coward
A craven coward
Or lie a coward in my grave
I had no personal connection to 9/11; knew nobody involved; felt, to be honest, very little beyond a sense of staggered amazement. And the awful, guilty cliche: it's like a film.
But 9/11 changed the world and changed our lives.
There will be those blogging today who insist that America deserved it. There will also be those (Sen Kerry) who insist that the world has become less safe since.
Effective cries, because partly true. In the grand scheme of things, America (and certainly American weaponry) has killed more people than any other country. And an American life lost on 9/11 is no more - or less - valuable than an Iraqi, Israeli or Palestinian life. And when the Americans deal death from the air to anybody, only the saintly, the heroic and the mad could welcome it as a liberation.
And yet, God willing, that may be what it becomes.
Possibly there are more terrorists, more hatred of America now. But this is to assume that this would not have otherwise been the case, which seems to play tricks with the known facts. It seems more to me that America is like Sam Neill in Jurassic Park: attract the dinosaur now, for fear of the consequences if you run and hide.
And America cannot run and hide. Like it or not, it is the world's superpower; the only nation remotely capable of even attempting to implement blithe UN resolutions. As a historian, I firmly believe that posterity will be kinder to President Bush and Prime Minister Blair than their contemporaries think. Yes, that's a horrible question of death and mayhem reduced to a retrospective geopolitical calculation. But after 9/11, it became clearer that the choices were very bad and appalling. No time for counter-factuals now, merely reflection and - hopefully - humility, but the case can and will be made that the President saw the bigger picture and saw it right.
To borrow another film, America is now Gary Cooper in High Noon. On the frontier, we have to hope that the greater violence is on the right side.
But it does look like a question of sides. That is the lesson of 9/11.
I do not know what fate awaits me
I only know I must be brave
And I must face a man who hates me
Or lie a coward
A craven coward
Or lie a coward in my grave
posted by BoB at 3:42 PM
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